KING 5's Allen Schauffler and I interviewed Dino Rossi for this Sunday’s Up Front program. The show airs at 9:30 a.m. on KING 5 and at 8 p.m. on Northwest Cable News. In the interview, Rossi talks about his backers at the Building Industry Association of Washington, what he would have done with tribal gambling compacts, and other issues.

We also continued the discussion for an interview you can watch now on-line. In that portion of the interview, I ask Rossi why he refuses to answer questions about issues he says aren’t part of his campaign. Here’s part of what he said:

I only have so much time to talk to the voters in the state of Washington. ... This is my campaign. I’ll talk about the issues I want to. When people have the guts enough to run for office they can actually talk about whatever issues they want to talk about.

As you likely know by now, the Times ran a story Wednesday about Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland and his admittedly inappropriate behavior toward a new female employee. If you read it, you’ll see that the paper had documents relating to the case for months, and interviewed Sutherland in April.

But the story wasn’t published until after horsesass.org posted details of the incident. So why did The Times publish now, but not when it had the story first? The shortest answer is that the horsesass post prompted the paper to reconsider its decision. And I’m glad that happened.

This is not a case of sliding standards, but rather the result of a wider discussion than what preceded the initial decision in the Times newsroom. And it is an instance where a blog can influence coverage in the old media.